


Silver

by Anonymous



Category: BlazBlue
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Roleswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 09:37:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2807849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Imperator offers Jin his heart's desire, and he takes it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silver

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iori_sempai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iori_sempai/gifts).



His hand had just taken Tsubaki's when the world shuddered. The hair on the back of his neck prickled, and Jin's head shot up. 

A space ten feet in front of him twisted. He pulled Tsubaki to her feet and she staggered, leaning against him for a moment. His hand moved to Yukianesa's hilt. 

The Sector Seven beastkin had said that this space would be protected; something that could pierce the barrier was nothing to be trifled with. Jin had a strong suspicion of the invader's identity, but he hoped that his suspicion was false.

Two silhouettes slowly darkened as the teleportation finished; a gloved hand reached out, moving sluggishly, as if through mud. The sleeve was heavy, fine cloth, silk embroidered with gems. Jin's hope dwindled and he tensed, gripping Yukianesa's hilt. He had seen that form once before, lit by the Cauldron's unearthly fire.

The world twisted again, in agony, and the Imperator Librarius stepped out. Next to him, Tsubaki's breath hitched.

Swathed from head to toe, the ruler of the Librarium's face could not be discerned. The head turned in a way that Jin knew was looking right at him, and he could feel the pinprick of that gaze.

"My lord," Tsubaki gasped. The clothed head, along with those eyes, turned to her.

"Tsubaki Yayoi," the Imperator said, the voice male and deep, "you have failed."

Jin could feel Tsubaki flinch back, reeling as if the Imperator had struck her. He might as well have. He took a step forward, placing himself in front of Tsubaki, cutting off the line of sight. The Imperator's eyes focused on him again, and the pressure of his intent felt like a physical force. Dammit. The last thing Tsubaki had needed was for this monster to crush her heart after losing control of her mind. The Imperator stood only ten feet away. Would he react fast enough to a slash? Perhaps not, but Jin caught a flutter of dark purple cloth in the corner of his eye. The Imperator's magic shadow, the shadow that had been the one to carve the Mind Eater into Tsubaki's mind.

The ruler of the NOL considered him. "Do you think you can protect her from me, Jin Kisaragi?" Something that sounded like a chuckle oozed from the cloaked figure, and Jin growled at it. "Then, you may have her," the Imperator said, as if Tsubaki was a _thing_ to be given away. "I have little use for her any longer."

Tsubaki did not cry out, but Jin felt her flinch behind him. It grated on the last shreds of his patience, exhausted as he was. _That's what the monster wants_ , he told himself, but it was so difficult with the Imperator standing there. He could end this. If he managed to get one good strike in, he could end it all.

"Leave," he said heavily, "or I'll cut you to shreds."

"What a rude boy." The Imperator's left sleeve moved, a pale, ungloved fist slid out, adorned with rings. It was clutching something small, a weapon? A spell? Jin flicked out the first inch of Yukianesa from its sheath, and a fine veil of mist formed around the sword.

"You haven't grown up at all," said the Imperator. The fist opened, though Jin could see little of importance. A bracelet, or a small choker. "Take this as a message. Perhaps you will find it interesting, and change your mind." The hand overturned, and the bracelet dropped to the dust of the Coliseum floor. The Imperator's shadow gathered behind it, and already the two forms were fading as the teleportation took hold; soon enough the Imperator had fled, leaving him angry but no more enlightened as to the Imperator's whims. A message? A bracelet as a message? It was more believable that it contained some vile trap.

Against him, Tsubaki wavered, and he barely caught her before she fell. "Jin-nii-sama," she gasped, and trembled. She had been pushed to exhaustion by both the battle and the Imperator's casting her off, and Jin felt hardly better. He knew that if he sat down now, he wouldn't get up again for hours. Neither of them would.

"It's gone now," he said, with a weak smile, squeezing her hand.

Tsubaki shook her head. "The Imperator will be back," she said. She bit her lip, but whatever she might have said was swallowed up as Makoto and Vermillion rushed in, calling for Tsubaki. With great reluctance, Jin let go of her hand, and she turned to her friends. The beastkin he could tolerate, but he would never like Vermillion, and Tsubaki needed her two friends more than she needed him right now, as much as it galled him. He knew he had been a jealous creature once, and it cost him dearly. He didn't want to lose Tsubaki too.

Jin turned his back just after they began their annoying wailing. On unsteady legs, he walked to where the Imperator had discarded the piece of jewelry. It looked plain. It looked hardly more than a worn leather band with some kind of small metal plate, and he could feel no hint of an ars or magic spell. Using the tip of Yukianesa, Jin picked it up from the sand, and regarded it before dropping it into his hand. 

He turned it over, and his heart stopped. The noise they had made faded into the background as he stared at the identifying silver plate and the words written on it.

_("Perhaps you will find it interesting, and change your mind.")_

 

Jin had never been so thankful to have a tournament end. All of them were swept back to the Yabiko headquarters, and soon enough the perky little mage--who reminded him of someone he couldn't place, and that familiar sensation gnawed at him--was looking them all over for wounds. 

Saya never left her side. Her left eye had been given an eyepatch, and her arm was now in a sling. Her weakness brought up old, sour memories and irritated him even more than the mage girl did.

"All fixed!" she chirped. At least her healing spells imparted a pleasant sensation. Healing ars and draughts he had used in the past were not always so.

Saya eyed him. Jin ignored her, despite the concern on her face. Had they been younger, still living in the church, she would've asked him what was wrong by now, but she was still wavering between concern and a weary wariness. He had little enough to say to her at the best of times, and certainly not now. He managed to stop himself from clutching the silver bracelet, though his hand itched to trace the pocket it was in. Saya was always perceptive, and this was none of her business. He wouldn't let her help him.

Tsubaki was harder to leave, and he warred with himself before deciding that this didn't involve her either. Jin had helped save her from the Imperator--but he didn't need her help in this. This was between him and the Imperator, and them alone.

He snuck out, hardly anyone noticing he might have left, and turned towards the center of Ikaruga--Ibukido, the ruined city. After the sun had set, the Imperator's shadow met him, and he willingly let it take him to wherever it had been commanded to take him.

If this was a trap, he would kill the Imperator.

If this was real--

If the bracelet was real, and not just taken from the ruins of the church--

Jin clutched the bracelet, tracing the identifying letters with his eyes over and over. ES. ES No. 05. Es No. 05 - RAGNA.

\--Then he'd be meeting his brother soon enough, and everything would stop mattering after that.

 

"I almost didn't think you would come," said the Imperator Librarius, lounging on his throne.

"I came for my brother," Jin growled. "Now give him back to me." Saya had lived, despite everything, so why not Ragna? Ragna must have lived. He felt it, knew that he wouldn't be alive right now if Ragna had died all those years before.

The Imperator tilted his head. Something about the Imperator now seemed--playful, compared to how matter of fact he had dealt with Tsubaki, and the cold, unfeeling way it had pronounced death on the world almost a month ago. Jin didn't like it. It was a sadistic kind of glee, a cat playing with its prey, and he wasn't a mouse.

"Then kneel," he said.

Jin stared at the cloaked figure. Kneel? "I'm not your servant," he ground up. He _never_ was, and whatever humiliation the Imperator hoped to derive from him only made Jin want to slit the ruler's throat with Yukianesa. 

The Imperator sighed. He stood up from the throne, to his full height, and looked down upon Jin. His hands lifted up, and, shockingly, lifted the masked veil from his face. "Oi," he said, and Jin started at that voice, that achingly familiar, rough voice, even as his eyes stared in horror at the pale, perfect face, "I said kneel."

Green eyes and blond hair. The Imperator looked down from Ragna's eyes and said, in Ragna's voice, "Kneel." Jin's knees buckled, and the Imperator smiled without warmth. He stepped down from the dais, and pat his head in a mockery of brotherly affection just as Jin choked out his name.


End file.
